


Branches of the Family Grid

by theianitor



Category: Formula 1 RPF
Genre: Conversations, Drinking, Helpful Finns, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Paternity questions, Revelations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-13
Updated: 2019-10-13
Packaged: 2020-12-13 20:09:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21003458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theianitor/pseuds/theianitor
Summary: In Russia, Jenson made a joke about his possible relation to the younger drivers, on the driver's parade truck. Kimi wants to know if there is any truth behind it.





	Branches of the Family Grid

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for setting up the challenge, Jash! It was a true challenge this time around, but it feels like I finally got there, lol. I can't resist an opportunity at Jenson/Kimi, and the joke led to research which made it too good (TOO good!) to pass up.

The airport bar was already pretty crowded and Jenson suspected it was about to get worse. Two flights out of Socchi had been cancelled and he was far from the only passenger affected. Having managed to get his bags on some kind of Luggage Tour of the World which would hopefully end back home, he squeezed his way over to the bar. With nothing to do but wait, he could at least have a pint.

He had just managed to get his drink from the unbothered-looking barman when he spotted an empty seat. It was strange. The bar was rammed, but at the counter, closest to the wall, there was a seat available. He approached it with some trepidation, thinking someone might have done something nasty nearby, but was relieved to find it was just being kept empty by its proximity to a surly-looking familiar face.

“Hey Kimi,” Jenson said, putting his drink down. Kimi glanced up and nodded at him, and Jenson figured this was as much invitation as there was going to be. “Your flight got cancelled too then?”

“It’s a bit shit,” Kimi said, raising his glass. “At least they have some pretty good beer otherwise it could have been properly shit.”

On the Kimi scale of things, Jenson supposed that any situation one had to go through beerless was quantifiably more shit than one where there was drink to be had. He had to admit he agreed.

As there was a replay running on the television in the corner, they made small talk about the race while sipping their drinks and checking the conveniently placed information board outside the little bar now and then. The flights that had been cancelled were stubbornly staying grounded, and soon enough Kimi was waving his hand for another beer, managing to make a full glass appear in front of Jenson as well.

“Cheers,” he said, and Kimi, misinterpreting what had been intended as thanks, raised his glass again. Jenson chuckled, but said nothing. If he had an afternoon to drink away, he could think of little better company than Kimi.

“Is it true what you said on the truck about the kids?”

Jenson had to look over. First off, to be absolutely sure that Kimi had actually spoken, and secondly to ensure that _he_ was the intended recipient of the comment. Not that they were talking to anyone else. He wasn’t sure exactly why but people were giving them a fair bit of space; the occasional bump from an over-refreshed traveller was nothing to get pissy about in an airport bar after all. But nobody was approaching them, and it was actually kind of nice.

“Pardon?”

Kimi licked his upper lip free of beer-foam and looked at him like he thought he’d made himself quite clear enough. When Jenson didn’t say anything he sighed.

“On the truck you said to the kids that you are old enough to be a dad to them.”

Blinking a few times, Jenson broke into a grin.

“Oh that, yeah, well, I mean... I’m almost 40. They’re what, 20?”

“Yeah but are you?”

“Am I what?”

“Are you the dad of the kids?”

Jenson started laughing. “Of course not! It was just an age-joke.”

The way Kimi looked him up and down with a little smirk on his lips, he felt it was only right to make another age-related point. “I could have said it was you, you’re older than I am.”

“Yeah but I haven’t fucked any of their mothers.”

During his time away from the grid and certainly spending so much time with mostly Japanese racers, Jenson had almost forgotten the delights of differing linguistic values. Kimi’s bluntness made him snort in surprise, and he could have sworn Kimi shot his beer a millisecond-smirk.

“Neither have I!”

“Really?” The Finn looked genuinely surprised. “I thought you fucked around a lot when you first got to Formula 1, that’s what everybody said...”

“Yeah but I mean... yeah,” Jenson floundered, waving his hands. “So did you,” he finally said, not being able to think of anything better to defend himself. Kimi shrugged.

“A little but I didn’t make any kids.”

“Neither did I, it was just a joke!”

“Are you _sure_?”

“’Course I am, I haven’t even _met_ their mums. It was just a play on them being really young.”

He thought about it as Kimi’s interest seemed to be on the race replay for a little bit. The rookies were indeed _very_ young, but he realized he didn’t know exactly how young they were. He glanced at Kimi. Since he’d had kids, Kimi had mellowed somewhat, but he too was staring down the barrel of forty. They could both be dads to kids in their twenties.

Mathematically speaking.

Not in reality.

Of course not.

“How old _are_ they anyway?” The words left his mouth before he could stop them, and Kimi looked over with one eyebrow raised.

“Did you think of something?”

“No I was just... you know. How old are they?”

“How should I know that?” Kimi took another sip of his beer, muttering something under his breath that sounded a lot like ‘I have a problem even remembering my own birthday’.

Jenson dug his phone out of his pocket and started clicking around.

“The wifi isn’t that great here,” he said, looking around to make sure nobody would be offended. Russia wasn’t known for its great internet connectivity at the best of times, but he would have thought they’d made some effort at an airport.

Beside him, Kimi got his own phone out with a displeased grunt at having to move around so much.

“Mine is working,” he said, holding the phone in one hand and poking at the screen with his index finger. “What is his last name, Alex...?”

“Albon,” Jenson supplied, sitting up a little straighter. “But he’s from Thailand, I’d never even gone to Thailand when I was 20.”

Kimi kept stabbing at his phone and then both his eyebrows rose so slowly it looked like they were being crane-lifted away.

“Well you still might be fucked because he was born in London,” he said, tilting his screen so Jenson could see. The image hadn’t loaded but the text said Alex had been born in London 23 years ago. Jenson did some quick arithmetic in his head.

“In -96 I was... sixteen? So no. I mean, not that he would have been, but he’s not.”

“You didn’t...” Kimi looked Jenson up and down again with an absolutely dirty grin, “_go to Thailand_ before you were sixteen?”

“No.” He pursed his lips at the highly personal question.

“Hm.”

“What do you mean ‘hm’?” Jenson said, feeling a little defensive again. “I suppose you were doing that way before sixteen.”

“No but I was a little bit surprised about you,” Kimi said, emptying his glass.

“Sixteen is too young to have kids,” Jenson said, shaking his head.

“Sure it’s too little to have kids but you didn’t even know you had kids so it doesn’t really make a big difference.” He waved the bartender over again.

In spite of himself, Jenson started started trying to make the internet connection cooperate and let him look at Wikipedia. George Russell had apparently been born in 1998, and Jenson counted the months back on his fingers.

“He is from England so he could definitely be one of yours,” Kimi said conversationally, looking at Jenson’s phone. The picture of Russell was fairly recent, and had loaded down to just below his chin.

“He looks a little bit like you.” Kimi looked at Jenson’s face in a way that made him very uncomfortable.

“No he doesn’t.” He couldn’t keep himself from looking at the picture again. Did he have anything in common with Russell?

“Little bit.” Kimi nodded to himself. “And him and Norris look a little bit like each other so they could be half brothers if you were the dad.”

“Norris?!” Jenson said, pressing the back-key on his phone and cursing when the page disappeared, but nothing new loaded. “I am _not_ Lando’s dad, that’s just ridiculous.”

“He’s from England.”

“I haven’t slept with all of _England_!”

“Meh,” Kimi said, waving his hand as if he was dismissing the argument. After fiddling with his phone for a few moments, he managed to google Lando, and grinned when he showed Jenson the results.

“1999, so you were something like... twenty?”

“Nineteen,” Jenson corrected.

“And he looks a little bit like you and Russell and he’s English,” Kimi nodded again, raising his glass to Jenson. “Cheers.”

“Now you’re just taking the piss,” Jenson complained, but he raised his glass nevertheless and took a swig. The Russian beer was at least better than the internet connection.

“No, but I need to,” Kimi said, getting up. “Don’t let anyone come and take my chair,” he warned, sauntering off towards the bathroom.

The joke seemed a bit funnier when Kimi wasn’t actively making fun of him. Just for the hell of it, he fought the horrible wifi into accessing Max’s Wikipedia page. The image wouldn’t load, but the little fact-sheet at the top popped up after about a minute.

Max had been born towards the later end of 1997, so he would have been created around the start of the year. Jenson shuddered. Even thinking about Jos Verstappen doing that kind of business was enough to threaten the return of his lunch. Then his eyes slowly widened as the Russian airport bar faded into a memory of a very different bar, a bar he had been standing by at an event many years ago...

_The suit felt strange but Jenson had to admit he kind of liked it. His dad had helped him pick one out at the rental place, and it fitted very well. As soon as he’d gotten in the door, he’d been given a glass of champagne by Flavio Briatore._

_“I can’t drink, I’m not eighteen yet,” he said apologetically. Flavio gave him a pitying look._

_“For tonight, we forget you are not old enough, yes?”_

_He nodded and sipped his drink in what he hoped was a distinguished and adult way. In reality, he was, as the expression goes, kind of shitting himself. There were some proper racers here. Not that the karting crowd was bad, but Formula 1-people were the real deal. Formula 1 was the dream, and playing your cards right could definitely help you get close to some of the right people._

_Whenever he started talking to someone there were more drinks to be had, or little toasts for achievements, or just in greeting. He was surprised at how many of them actually knew his name; they knew he could drive, and he felt bolstered both by the praise and the champagne. He saw Giancarlo and Jarno, and a few of the younger drivers. Now that he was seventeen, the lower league drivers definitely looked like kids. It was strange to think he’d started around the same age as some of them._

_Walking towards the bar he bumped shoulders with a short-haired, broad-faced young man in a suit, and turned to apologize. The man was completely swept up in conversation with the blonde girl under his arm though, and didn’t notice at all. Then Jenson realized he recognized the man. It was Jos Verstappen, and Jenson’s eyebrows knitted. Last he’d heard, Jos had been together with Sophie, one of his own former, temporary teammates. He continued on his way to the bar, already feeling the effects of the drinks and pondering how relationships sometimes just didn’t work out._

_After mingling awkwardly for a couple of hours, Jenson walked over to the bar again. This time he felt more at home accepting his new glass of champagne with a nod and a smile. He felt comfortably buzzed and light, a little round under his heels, and kind of happy. Looking around he couldn’t see anyone he really knew, but he felt fine to just stand around for a bit and sip his drink. Then the girl on his left turned around._

_“Jenson?”_

_He tried to not look so surprised, but it was damn near impossible. Last time he’d seen Sophie, she’d still been somewhat boyish, her hair only just long enough to be tied back and her elbows about as sharp as her racing._

_“Sophie?!”_

_She looked great. She’d gotten taller and filled out – or maybe it was just the effect of the dark blue, kind of shiny dress she had on, a dress which opened up just so in the front and gave him thoughts, very private thoughts, about what was hinted underneath._

_“You look nice,” he said, and she smiled._

_“You don’t look so bad yourself,” she said, scanning his suit and tie. He stood up a little straighter._

_He lied about having turned eighteen already, but it sounded better than “I’ll be seventeen in about two weeks” and he knew she must be twenty already, looking so adult and... good. They talked about racing and some of the people who were there, and it was probably because of the drinks he mentioned that he’d seen Jos and gave his condolences that their relationship hadn’t worked out._

_“Worked out?”_

_“Yeah I saw him leaving with a blonde girl..?”_

_Something flickered in her eyes for the briefest moment, and then there was a smile on her face again._

_“Oh that,” she said, putting her hand on his arm, stroking down softly, leaving something that felt like static behind. “It’s okay, sometimes things just don’t work out, you know?”_

_“Yeah,” Jenson agreed._

_“So, where are you staying tonight?” she asked, blinking slowly and looking up at him through her lashes, her hand stroking his arm again. He thought it must be the drinks. Surely, she wasn’t doing what he thought she might be doing..?_

_She was._

“What’s wrong?” Kimi asked when he came back, wiping his hands on his pants. Jenson was still staring straight ahead, his mouth hanging open. Kimi gave him a prod and sat down in his chair. “Hey.”

“I think... eh... I... eh... Max?” Jenson managed. Kimi looked at him for a few seconds and then nodded like he understood, which was impossible, but rather nice of him anyway. Taking Jenson’s phone, left forgotten on the bar, Kimi pushed the button and found the Wikipedia page that Jenson had left open.

“Ninety-seven,” he said slowly. “Did you do it in ninety-seven?”

“I... eh... yes?” Jenson said, turning to look at him. The corners of Kimi’s mouth twitched.

“And have you done it some time after ninety-seven?”

“What... yes?! Of course I bloody well have!”

“Want to do it again now?”

“What?!” Jenson shook his head, trying to make sense of the conversation again. Kimi shrugged.

“The plane won’t go until tomorrow and I have a room at the hotel at the airport, we could get something to drink and...” he raised his eyebrows suggestively, “go to Thailand?”

“What, _now_?!” Jenson felt like the room was moving, the insurmountable ‘maybe’ still swirling in his mind, and Kimi suggesting they hook up because they had nothing better to do for the night tilted the room even further.

“Yeah?” Kimi said, waving the barman over. Through mime and Finnish determination it somehow only took him about a minute to get the young Russian man to hand him a full bottle of vodka in a discreet little plastic bag.

“Are you coming? It’s not like you can do anything else about it now anyway so you can come for drinks and relax. Deal with it tomorrow.”

Somehow it actually settled the commotion inside. It wasn’t _that_ likely, anyway. And any worrying could be done tomorrow. Drinks sounded like a good idea.

“Yeah,” he said, getting up. “Yeah, let’s.”

"Good," Kimi said, looking exceedingly pleased, and on the way out of the bar he clapped Jenson firmly on the shoulder.

“And on the good side, I can’t get pregnant.”

\--

The remnants of the vodka from the night before made him feel sluggish and slow, but Kimi still woke up before Jenson did, stretching and then relaxing back down into the comfortable hotel bed. For an airport hotel, it was alright, and hangovers could be cured.

He sat up and went to the bathroom, washing his face off and then glancing at his toiletry bag. The hangover was a completely expected side-effect of the drinking; another one was that Jenson had seemingly been able to put his heavy thoughts on hold, at least for the time being, and find a bit of relief. They’d drank, talked about other things, laughed and joked as the old colleagues they were, and enjoyed each other’s company in ways they hadn’t done in quite a while.

Still. Now Kimi felt like he wanted to help. Unfortunately, he had needed similar services at one point himself. Fortunately, that had led to him having some very discreet and fast-working contacts that could help in this kind of situation.

With the whole bed at his disposal, Jenson had turned onto his back and was still sleeping soundly when Kimi padded back into the room. In any other case, he would have shoved the Brit to turn him over and get him to stop snoring. Right now, the heavy sleeping and open mouth played right into his hands. Kimi poked the cotton swab into his mouth and gathered some saliva from the inside of his cheek.

Jenson scrunched his nose up and closed his mouth, trying to turn away, and Kimi had to pull the swab back quickly to get it out of the reach of his sleepy hands.

“Whashgoin’on?” he slurred.

“Wake up,” Kimi said, pushing away from the bed. “My flight leaves pretty soon so you have to get up.”

“Always such a romantic,” Jenson grumbled, turning over.

\--

The following Wednesday, after arriving in Japan, Kimi passed Lando in the paddock and raised his hand in greeting.

“Hi Kim-” Lando managed before Kimi, at a speed Lando hadn’t expected him to be able to achieve outside of the car, jerked his hand forward and poked him in his open mouth.

“What the hell?!” Lando squeaked, putting his hands up to cover his mouth. “What the hell did you do?!”

“I haven’t done anything?” Kimi said, shrugging as he passed Lando.

“What... I mean... you...”

Lando kept spluttering behind him and Kimi determinedly didn’t smile as he walked on, putting the wet cotton swab away in a little zip-lock bag, pushing his sunglasses further up on his nose.

\--

Standing outside the press room, Kimi couldn’t keep the smile off of his face any longer. It was almost too easy. Russell was such a fucking good guy, of course he carried a toothbrush with him to avoid embarrassment. Russell was such a well-behaved good kid that it almost didn’t surprise Kimi that he even had one of those little plastic caps on the toothbrush in question. Almost. Kimi slipped past behind him and simply stole the toothbrush out of his pocket, still smiling to himself at the thought of George Russell learning how to pick pockets.

\--

It was late on Wednesday when Kimi finally made up his mind to not go after Albon. He couldn’t suppress a little snort of laughter at Jenson being embarrassed to talk about ‘going to Thailand’, and he supposed he might have been lying about that – and hadn’t Albon been born in England? But, there was something to be said for likeness, and Albon and Jenson didn’t really look anything alike. That, coupled with Jenson’s assurance that he hadn’t had sex at that age made him push off from the wall and move away from the Red Bull mechanics hovering around Albon. A small part of him wanted to stay put, if nothing else to see what they might do if he approached one of their drivers.

He made a mental note to try it some other time.

\--

The mechanics and Red Bull staff proved the biggest problem in getting to Max, until Kimi realized that their strength could also be their weakness. A few well-aimed glares got him closer to Max’s press-person, where he decided that a nicer approach might be better.

“Hello,” he said, tipping his sunglasses down so she could see his eyes. It usually seemed to help.

“Hello Mr. Raikkonen,” she said, mispronouncing his name the way everyone did. He didn’t mind; it wasn’t like he even _knew_ everybody’s names. “What can I do for you?”

“We have a little thing going on, you know making jokes and I would like your help to-”

“Let me rephrase,” she said, and her smile was a little more shark-like now. “How much will I get for helping you?”

Kimi was stunned for a few seconds and then fired off a predatory grin of his own.

“Fifty if you help, double if you can do it fast.”

“Make it a hundred and you have a deal.” She held out her hand for him to shake.

“You don’t know what I even want you to do yet?”

“Does it matter?”

He shook her hand, making another mental note: never, ever, piss off your press-person.

It wasn’t even lunchtime yet when she appeared with a wet little swab in the bag he had given her.

“How did you do that?” He was genuinely surprised.

“Told him it was part of the makeup for a photo,” she said, flipping her hair over her shoulder.

Kimi nodded mutely and accepted the bag, circling his mental note from before in red and adding an exclamation point.

\--

Money always made things move faster, Kimi reflected on Thursday night, holding the envelope in his hands. It had been personally delivered to his hotel room earlier by a young, nervous-looking Japanese man, who had bowed and excused himself several times, asked for an autograph and then scurried away like he was scared Kimi was actually going to be mad.

It was very tempting to open it. It had his name on it, after all. At first it had felt like a risk but then Kimi realized it was just another upside. If someone blabbed and spread rumors that he was taking a paternity test, he could categorically deny it, and the DNA would support his claim. _His_ DNA wasn’t anywhere near this test. It still said his name on it though.

With a sigh he put the envelope away. Jenson deserved to know first. With a little snort, Kimi thought he must be going soft in his old age.

\--

“Here,” he said Friday morning, pushing the envelope into Jenson’s hands. The Brit looked confused, but when his eyes landed on the sender’s logo, they widened almost comically and he quickly pressed the envelope against his chest so nobody else would be able to see it.

“What the hell did you do?” he hissed.

Kimi looked around. He had chosen the space between these two trailers because nobody ever came back here. If somebody had dirty business to do, they’d usually hide between the motorhomes – this wasn’t dirty business, this was actually important. He shrugged.

“I thought you might want to know for sure.”

Jenson’s mouth opened, then closed, then opened again. He didn’t say anything though.

“If you don’t want to know I can just throw that away because I haven’t looked at it and...”

“No, I...” Jenson slowly peeled the envelope down and looked at it again, and Kimi could see his hand was shaking a little bit. It was just as well that Jenson wasn’t a driver anymore, he thought. Nerves like that did not bode well for the lap times.

“Now I want to know.”

His fingers were still shaking when he tore the top of the envelope open and took out the two sheets of paper inside. The first one merely detailed what they’d done, and Jenson’s eyes scanned down the text quickly, before coming to a screeching halt.

“Sample..?” he said, slowly shifting his gaze to Kimi, who shrugged again.

“They have to have something to compare so I took care of it,” he said. No point in lying.

“You... took samples?”

“Are you going to get to the second page or are you going to keep talking about the sample?”

Jenson looked on the verge of saying something more, but then shifted the papers around to look at the second one.

Sample one was negative. Sample two was inconclusive. Sample three...

“It’s...” Jenson said, his hands shaking even worse now. “It’s...”

“Positive. Hm,” Kimi said, nodding. He didn’t know what he’d been expecting, but here, at least was something definite. He was a little bit surprised about the other two results, both because it lessened the chance of Jenson having fathered the two drivers, but also because it meant they probably weren’t brothers either.

“Wait, Kimi,” Jenson’s eyes were scanning the paper so fast Kimi half expected his eyeballs to do a full loop. “It doesn’t have any names.”

“No they don’t work with names, only with the samples.”

“So how do you know who’s who?!”

“You put a number on the thing when you send it.”

Jenson shook the paper at him. “So who the hell is sample number three then?!”

“It’s Max,” Kimi said. Jenson lowered the paper slowly, doing that fish-impression with his mouth again.

“The first one is for Norris, the second one is from Russell.”

“So... I’m...”

Kimi took the paper out of Jenson’s hand and looked at the results. Positive match, with a 99.9% certainty.

“Yeah,” he summarized.

\--

He’d been a little reluctant to leave Jenson alone for the weekend, but he’d insisted he wouldn’t do anything “stupid”. Kimi doubted it very much, but if the man said he could take care of himself, he wasn’t going to argue. He didn’t even see that much of him for the rest of the weekend, with quali being cancelled and Sunday being a very full and hectic race day.

By the time he got Jenson on his own again, it was Sunday night. The bad weather was passing and the Brit seemed strangely relaxed, inviting Kimi in and then apparently resuming the position he’d had before receiving company: standing over by the window, looking out.

“Have you decided what to do?”

Jenson flinched only slightly, which Kimi took as a good sign. He’d never seen the use in wrapping things up in cotton wool.

“Yeah I’m... I’m not going to do anything.” He glanced over to Kimi as if he was worried about being argued with. Kimi shrugged.

“I feel like bringing it up now might just mess Max up even more,” Jenson continued, “and he’ll be grown up soon. Properly grown up.”

“You mean he’ll be away from his stepdad,” Kimi said, and was glad to see Jenson returning his smile. They were quiet for a moment and Kimi took the opportunity to hand over the little plastic bag he’d brought.

“I thought you might need it,” he said, sitting down on the edge of the bed. Jenson looked inside the bag and snorted.

“Thanks,” he said, words dripping with sarcasm. He unpacked the bottle of sake and the pack of condoms. Kimi shrugged again, grinning.

“One to forget and one so you don’t do it again.”

“Not a great risk of that now, is there?”

“No you know already that I can’t get pregnant.”

Jenson actually laughed, and went to the little kitchenette to get them two glasses. Pouring them both a generous measure of sake he then raised his glass. Kimi met it, and drank his portion down quickly, making a face. He’d never been a great fan of sake.

“So were you interested in putting those to use then?” Jenson said, taking the pack of condoms off the desk and tossing them onto the bed.

“I’m not leaving until tomorrow,” Kimi replied, shaking his head when Jenson glanced at him with the bottle raised in question.

“Good to know,” he said, and rather than sipping as he had before, he now drained the glass in one mouthful. Kimi smirked. Then he thought of something.

“Hey do you know Seb’s dad?”

Jenson wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and put his glass down. He narrowed his eyes and looked thoughtful for a minute.

“Norbert? Yeah, I’ve met him-”

“No no no,” Kimi interrupted, shaking his head and waving his hand emphatically. “Do you know who _is_ Seb’s dad?”

\- The End -

**Author's Note:**

> All in good fun, as per usual! :)  
Thanks for the read! Any and all kudoses and comments will be tucked in comfortably and given warm milk before bed! <3


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